


Crush

by chinuplilpup



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, Gen, super indulgent fic about how they may have first met
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 10:44:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12011082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chinuplilpup/pseuds/chinuplilpup
Summary: She meets Jillian Red at the gym.





	Crush

**Author's Note:**

> if there is canon that contradicts this (and there probably is) this is an au. that's my story and i'm sticking to it

She meets Jillian Red at the gym. Jacqui is still testing out the new weight of her cybernetic arms. Though she’s seen other people, even seen them regularly, she doesn’t particularly talk to anyone. She spots Jill stretching in one corner of the gym and automatically heads towards the opposite corner. 

Jillian stands smoothly out of the splits and introduces herself as Jacqui’s partner. 

She’s pretty: smooth dark skin, bright red hair that falls over one eye, her other eye whirring and cybernetic. They shake hands. Jacqui walks to the weights. Her rhythm is thrown off a little—she keeps pausing or losing count of her sets to sneak glances across the gym. 

Jacqui can see herself doing jobs with Jillian. Most of her workout is acrobatic, on the high bars and climbing rope. A good skill set, complementary.

She moves smoothly, confidently. Jacqui watches as she hooks her knees over the bar and hangs upside down. She starts doing crunches. 

Sweat drips down Jacqui’s spine beneath her sports bra and pools at the small of her back. She shakes herself and starts counting her pushups again. One, two, three… She does twenty, then puts her feet up on the 50 pound weight she had been lifting and does some more. 

“Excuse me.” 

Jacqui’s head snaps up. Jillian’s cybernetic eye focuses on Jacqui’s for a moment and then darts away. It doesn’t rest on anything for too long. Jacqui wonders about the color of her other eye. 

“Huh?”

Jillian rolls her cybernetic eye pointedly towards the weight rack.

“Oh!” She scrambles off the mat between Jillian and the weights. “There you go.”

“Thanks.” Jillian goes to pick up the other 50 pound dumbbell. Her bicep strains a little and her shoulders slope. She’s probably used to a lighter weight. Jacqui might just want to think that because it’s kind of funny. 

“Want some help with that?” 

She swivels her head towards Jacqui. Her expression is impassive, leaning towards icy, but hey, Jacqui doesn’t know how to read her yet. She doesn’t really know what to do with impassive, but she can work with a little mean.

There’s definitely a challenge in her eyes. Jillian sits on the bench and starts doing lifts. Slow, deliberate ones. 

Jacqui can get with a competitive streak. She picks up a 150 pound weight and sits on the other side of the bench. Her arm doesn’t tremble like Jillian’s, but Jacqui can feel little pieces inside of it whirring and shifting, seeking more traction. 

Jillian caves first. Jacqui is so concentrated on finishing her thirtieth rep that she jumps when the dumbbell hits the floor. 

“I started before you,” Jillian says before Jacqui can decide whether it would ruin the thing they have going if she used her remaining energy to crow with victory. “I hope you’re counting your sets.”

Jacqui beats her by two. She’s still grinning on her way out of the gym. 

 

They see each other mostly at the gym, before they run any jobs together. Jillian doesn’t talk much but she responds when Jacqui does, sometimes even with a smile.

The week before their first job and the day after they were briefed about it, Jillian asks how many pull-ups Jacqui thinks she can do. 

It turns out Jacqui can do fifty-two before her arms quit. 

Jillian slaps her on the back, smiling with all her teeth, and says, “Not bad.” 

She knows immediately that she’s going to lose. She grabs a towel and some water as Jillian chalks up her hands and stretches out for much longer than necessary. When she lowers herself to the ground and starts obviously stretching out her legs, Jacqui realizes that Jillian’s hand on her sweaty shoulder blade was the first skin to skin contact they’d had. The tingling in her stomach is definitely endorphins or something.

First she ties her hair out of her eyes, then jumps up to the bar. She doesn’t break a sweat until eighty. The exhaustion in Jacqui’s upper body turns to the loose euphoria that follows a good workout. Jillian keeps going, a steady rhythm, until her arms are shaking. 

“Ninety-eight, ninety nine,” Jacqui shouts, “one hundred!” She whoops. 

Jillian lowers herself back to the ground and winks. The eye usually hidden under her hair is deep brown. Jacqui decides she likes her a lot.


End file.
